


Childhood Musing

by Madlymiho



Category: One Piece
Genre: Childhood, Drabble, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29717862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madlymiho/pseuds/Madlymiho
Summary: Commission for Sang (@82kmnr_works) who wanted a drabble regarding Enel's childhood and his use of his devil fruit.
Kudos: 5





	Childhood Musing

**Author's Note:**

> My Kofi commission and regular commissions are open!

For what we know regarding Enel’s past, his origins were of course leading us to Birka. Among all the three species of the sky islands, Birkan were probably the most mysterious ones, evolving on an island far from the usual quarrels between the Shandorian and the Skypiean, perhaps because they were not fully sharing the same vision of the world, nor the same spirituality when it came to the moon. Indeed, Birkan people have always been a military institution in the first place, powerful but controlled, training their children from a very young age, until they would commit themselves in the Birkan campaigns, if they ever leave their island. It never happened of course, but that tradition has never changed, and no one would actually question how things were and should be. Enel wasn’t an exception either. His childhood was split between his military duties and his spiritual journey, growing strong and worshipping nature more than any ruler. The place of a Birkan was always settled from the beginning, their cults and their perceptions of the world quite severe in the end, because they were attached to spiritual ways that have never been dismissed nor changed for centuries. It preserved them from the toxic demeanors coming from other sky species, filling their mind with the everlasting sensation that they were indeed, superiors to the rest of their long time brothers.

He’d follow the indications regarding his daily training, his days only focused on his capacities to grow as a soldier, naturally good at it, and his nights cherishing the moon above his head. He has always felt deeply connected to her in a way he couldn’t explain, that intense need to one day reach her becoming a childhood obsession which has never fully left him. Enel has always sensed there was something there, better than anything he would know, and that urge couldn’t be contained to only dreams. It was a secret promise he made with her. In addition, he also develops his engineering skills from an early age, understanding the gear wheels and tools to create small objects he liked to display in his home, capable to shape wood, gold or shells, whatever could tickle his imagination, it was after all, his only way to be a normal child, a parenthesis from his harsh training. He loved those moments, right after he was coming back from the dojo, to focus on projects which were highly difficult and tricky from a child of his age, and yet, he proved himself dedicated and skillful. For a long time, he never questioned the orders of things, however, everything changed when Enel began to develop what he called later to be his mantra. Sensing people’s emotions was something he didn’t understand in the first place, harassed with the various sensations surrounding him, like a black veil, absolutely intrusive and disturbing. He thought he was cursed, unloved and too different to morph, and that sensation has been nothing but toxic for a while, like a seed growing within his mind and whispering that he’s an abomination, even if, somehow, he dragged more people around him, a lot of them seeing in Enel’s natural charisma something appealing. 

It was probably the moment he began to split with his usual way of life, becoming more distant with Birka’s obligations and its intense training, potentially understanding that there’s something else, something different about him, and it’s not terrible in the end, on the contrary. Questioning the mores of Birka wasn’t his place, and yet, he couldn’t help but wonder if his whole life and knowledge wasn’t outdated, just dogmas he wouldn’t understand nor vibe with in the end. He loved to take time for himself to meditate and grow closer from the nature surrounding him, leaving what Birkan could have seen as a lazy life. If that new mantra power could have led him to a new state of madness, Enel used it and tamed it. Instead of surrendering to the pleas and sufferings he was hearing every day, he trained harder and harder, to embrace that nature and to be able to reach a second state where he wouldn’t only be a Birkan, but so much more.

He became a Hedonist for the very same reason that his mantra was nothing but an open door to a world that other sky people couldn’t reach, bathing in the rawest emotions, all of them entirely pure, deprived of any interpretation possible, nothing to trick him, nor lie either. It’s definitely in this path, at this moment of his life, that the question of God became his only obsession, rather than the moon or his origins. If God could hear everything, could touch everything, could be the most powerful individual in the world, then why couldn’t he be God himself instead of following the orders of commandants he didn’t even have respect for? His brutal strength and his flexibility could lead him to a new title he would have earned  _ naturally _ , since he’s gifted, he, with the power to sense the others’ presence and their emotions.

Yet, Enel’s journey knew a significant change when he discovered his devil fruit. Of course, those fruits weren’t forbidden in Birka, but they were highly rare and almost impossible to find in the first place, so Enel immediately perceived it as another natural hint for his supremacy. The thunder fruit, however, definitely came with a price, and Enel had to learn how to use it. His sessions of training were quite difficult but thrilling, volts erupting out of his skin without controlling it, unable as well to predict the strength of his hits. He burnt a huge amount of his own home and island, and he rushed into trees and rocks more than once while he tried to fly. Lightning was wild, damaging, and the body couldn’t always follow the user’s wish, collapsing whenever the amount of power became too important. If the frustration was real, Enel fell in love right away with his devil fruit, and decided once again to use his skills and his knowledge to build an instrument in order to master that power he definitely wished to be his. That’s how his God complex started to fully occupy his brain most of the time. He felt deeply wrathful to be blocked in his ascent to the power, knowing that, in order to achieve his scheme and his plans, he needed to control his fruit and use it at its full capacities.

While his rise from the dust was impossible due to his ‘human’ nature, and detached from the Birkan’s ways for a few years already, despising the military dogmas, the indoctrination to become a soldier, Enel took a radical decision. Perhaps the loss of someone close to him has been the necessary trigger to his sudden change of pace, Enel deciding to rip his wings off, not only to claim what he believed to be his earned place in the world, but also to forever put an end to his link with the Birkan. His wings were only a symbol of slavery, forcing him to belong to a crew, to people he has never truly been able to love nor respect in the end. The drums he attached to his back, despite the cruel sensation, the suffering to lose a limb, were for him, his real birth and a symbol of his marvelous future. Enel could walk on Birka, on Skypiea, not ashamed to be God because, after all, he has been born as one. He has been born gifted, and those presents he received, from his intelligence, to his flexibility, his knowledge, his combat skills, have been nothing but natural. 


End file.
